A different slant on pharmaceutical advertising from this month’s (the last free issue by the way) BMJ – Killing me softly: myth in pharmaceutical advertising.
Above is an advertisement for Aprovel, an angiotensin-receptor blocker anti-hypertensive, from a medical journal in the UK. The BMJ dissects this ad, discussing the subtle use of myth in pharmaceutical advertising in medical journals:
This image transports the (UK) reader to an exotic location. Clear blue sky and calm sea denote a high pressure warm front, suggesting hypertension. The pool’s edge divides nature and culture; unbroken surface tension signifying containment and control in contrast to the ocean’s unbridled force. The man seems to belong to nature, the woman to culture (beauty and the beast?). Legs hooked over the board, he hangs apishly, body massively contracted, even his extremities. This suggests an association between hypertension and inversion: both increase blood pressure in the brain, neither should be maintained for long. The athletic stunt, like the medical condition, seeks attention, which comes as a kiss of approval (or Aprovel).
The woman is also quite taut. Her grip on the pool rim shows she is not lifting herself up but apparently resisting an uplifting force. This is another allusion to surface tension: if you imagine the board dipping into the pool and slowly lifting out, the kissing couple represent a droplet that clings and stretches between board and surface until it breaks. The kiss is a tension, joining and separating two bodies. It marries natural impulse to its acculturated expression, passion and institution, mediating between nature wild and uncontrolled (untreated hypertension) and nature tamed and pacified (medicated). The man personifies hypertension, the woman Aprovel. An explicit association between Aprovel and hypertension is linked to a series of parallel tensions: atmospheric, postural, muscular, surface, sexual. Each is paired with an appropriate response: for hot weather, bathing; for inversion, reversion; for contraction, relaxation; for a perturbed ocean, the swimming pool; for man, woman; for nature, culture; for hypertension, Aprovel. The advert naturalises an association between Aprovel and hypertension by implying their membership of an order of natural couplings. It is a sophisticated version of a generic advertising myth: for indication Y, drug X is the natural choice.
I’m not sure I saw all of that, but the article also goes on to discuss two other examples. They write in an accompanying editorial:
Many of us have been misled into overconfidence about drugs such as cyclo-oxygenase-2 inhibitors, antidepressants, and misnamed “hormone replacement therapy.” To avoid being misled again and again, we need a better understanding of how promotional techniques work as a foundation both for better regulation of promotion and for better training for healthcare professionals. Harnessing promotional techniques may also enable more effective dissemination of evidence based medicine.
Interesting stuff. I feel like I’m back in my old undergraduate art-appreciation class.
